My dog is unsocialised and anxious
I recently took a family member’s 1.5 year old golden retriever in to my care and have come to find out she has not been properly socialised at all.
She is such a gorgeous girl and so loving with us but she’s absolutely terrified of any dog (except our own dog) and any strangers/new people. She’s incredibly submissive (lies down immediately) if any dogs try to approach her and can sometimes growl. With people she ducks her head and backs off if anyone comes near her, I do try to avoid close interaction at this stage to avoid her further stress which I’m not sure if it is the right thing to do or not.
If any of our friends visit our house she will come up sniff them and then run away/back off and sometimes growl.
She is absolutely terrified of going anywhere indoors in public, I tried to take her to the pet store and a quiet cafe and she hated every moment so we left right away.
Our other dog is fully trained and socialised with a very docile personality so this is my first time handling this kind of situation and I just want to do right by her so she can have a nice life. I’m just not sure what the best first step would be, I’m worried about how I would ever get her in to a vet/allow them to examine her or if I would be best to seek out a behaviourist first?
I’m not close with the family member I took her from but I do know that two dogs tried to attack her when she was about 8 months old so I’m sure this has really knocked her confidence even further.
I was just wondering if anyone had been through anything similar and if they had any advice they could pass on if they managed to improve things with their doggy? Thank you so much